My First Summer 



to be kept up. While I was anxiously brood- 

 ing on the bread problem, so troublesome to 

 wanderers, and trying to believe that I might 

 learn to live like the wild animals, gleaning 

 nourishment here and there from seeds, 

 berries, etc., sauntering and climbing in 

 joyful independence of money or baggage, 

 Mr. Delaney, a sheep-owner, for whom I 

 had worked a few weeks, called on me, and 

 offered to engage me to go with his shep- 

 herd and flock to the headwaters of the 

 Merced and Tuolumne rivers, the very re- 

 gion I had most in mind. I was in the mood 

 to accept work of any kind that would 

 take me into the mountains whose treasures 

 I had tasted last summer in the Yosemite 

 region. The flock, he explained, would 

 be moved gradually higher through the 

 successive forest belts as the snow melted, 

 stopping for a few weeks at the best places 

 we came to. These I thought would be 

 good centres of observation from which I 

 might be able to make many telling excur- 

 [4] 



